A Romance Told in Bits and Pieces
by Kitakana
Summary: Once upon a time, a young time-traveling Mary Sue met a demon lord. Through a series of fanon clichés, the two inexplicably came together, drawn by fate and perhaps, a deus ex machina or two. Kagome reflects on the long string of random and improbably events that led her to be Sesshoumaru's not-quite-friend. One-shot.


**A Romance Told in Bits and Pieces**

_Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or associated characters. I do not even own Inuyasha fanon tropes of hot springs or demon mating rituals. I merely piece together what I find._

* * *

I remember my life with him in bits and pieces.

Our relationship did not start out on the best of terms. If I remember correctly, he tried to kill me. Nearly succeeded too. I remember being drenched in dokutsu, thinking I was dying, and then somehow I wasn't even mildly injured. I still don't know why. Neither does he.

At the time, if someone would have told me that we would end up together, I would have called them crazy. Granted, before I turned fifteen, if someone had told me I would be transported back 500 years into feudal Japan, I wouldn't have believed them either. But that's how it happened, fate and perhaps the kami Rumiko Takahashi willed it so. I suppose that experience should have taught me not to be surprised by unexpected twists in fate. But, with him, nothing ever turned out as I would have expected.

I would like to imagine that he began to harbor a hidden fascination with me that started when I first defied him, pulling the Tessaiga from his father's grave. He asked me then, _what are you?_ I didn't have much of a response. I was Kagome, simple as that. But somehow, from than on, I don't think he was willing to accept that as the only reason.

He never seemed to pay much attention to me for the first year or so that I knew him. He would show up periodically, fight with his half-brother, and then be on his merry way. I was too caught up in said half-brother to notice any withering, piercing glares he shot my way, too preoccupied with other things to puzzle out what they meant.

Eventually, though, his relationship with me did seem to shift. The first time I really noticed this was when he saved me from Mukotsu. He did not have to do it, he gained absolutely nothing. He went out of his way to help me. Just for the sake of doing it. It was then that I started to wonder, to ask myself, _what was he?_

He couldn't be the cold-hearted unfeeling demon his brother saw him as. No, that demon would never adopt a human girl. That demon would not save me just to save me and for no other ulterior motive. What was he, and more importantly, who was he? I wanted to find out.

It seemed he wanted to find out about me as well.

I remember coming back through the well to find myself face to face with an unreadable demon. _What are you? _he asked me for the second time. And so, we began to talk.

We had a surprisingly civil conversation. No yelling, no insults thrown around, not even any pulling of rank on his part. He seemed like a fairly nice person. It really was surprising, looking back on that now. He had to have had some ulterior motive for being that nice to me, I should have realized at the time. Of course he did. I did not find out until later what it was. I am still not sure if I fully understand it, even now.

He wanted to figure me out. It seemed I had confused him, he did not know how I could act as I did and still carry on as I did. I was a puzzle for him, a riddle he could not crack without collecting more information. And so he became privately obsessed with me.

I also think that he saw understanding me as a way of understanding himself. If he could puzzle out one simple human girl, albeit a time-traveling shikon miko with Mary Sue tendencies, then he could gain a better insight into his own feelings and actions. Of course he would never admit that out loud, but that's what I think.

I remember how our relationship seemed to grow from that point on. From time to time, I would feel his presence and would go searching for him when the others were asleep or distracted. We would talk. Most often about philosophy and life, but other things as well. He wanted to know everything about my time. I, in turn, wanted to know about his life.

I was quite forthcoming with information about my life and my time. He, unsurprisingly, was not at first. And so we had a discussion about the philosophy of equivalent exchange.

For each thing gained, something is given up. There must be a balance between give and take. Sesshoumaru did not wish to see this at first. He still has issues with that. For him, it's all about take, take, take and never giving up anything.

But eventually, he did come around a bit, although it took a while. This was how the principle of equivalent exchange started to define our relationship as it grew from enemies, to acquaintances, to not-quite-friends.

I may or may not have succeeded in bringing his ego down a notch. At least he stopped calling me "human" after we started talking more. "Miko" was how he referred to me while we were in the stage of being not-quite-friends. I remember the first time he called me by my name.

We were having one of those periodical conversations about life and everything. Names came up. I asked if he minded that I dropped the Sama from his name. He said that we had reached the point at which it no longer defined our interactions. I remember being slightly taken aback. This statement showed me more than anything else that our relationship was shifting. We were on a more equal ground. We were conversation partners, not Sama and Miko.

And then he spoke my name. _Kagome_. That simple word had never really held more force or more relevance as he said it just then. Imagine Sesshoumaru in all of his glory sitting next to me in a forest at night, intensely regarding me with his burning eyes and then saying my name, never breaking eye contact. Take my word for it, it was really intense. I think that that was the first time that I saw Sesshoumaru, I mean really saw him, for who he was and what he could be to me. Looking back, I think that that night marked the shift in our relationship from not-quite-friends to not-quite-friends.

From that point forwards for a while, there was this kind of tension simmering below the surface of all of our interactions. We never really addressed it for a while, but it was there. The way his eyes intensified when we locked gazes, the way my heart would leap just a bit every time I sensed him near, the way he continued to say my name.

And this went on for some time, while playing only one small part in my life. I mean, time travel, shard hunting, sitting, school, and mothering everyone take time, right? But I was starting to spend an awful lot of time thinking about a certain annoying demon who would not leave me alone. And no, I don't mean the loud annoying one. Or the persistent annoying one. Just the arrogant annoying one. And he's not as annoying as the other two.

I think I was starting to shift some to. I was nearing the end of high school. The shikon no tama was getting closer to completion. At this point, I had also been having random conversations with my dear not-quite-friend for some months. And we were still not-quite-friends.

I remember when it finally shifted. I wish I could say it was really dramatic and full of action, some life or death situation that necessitated our getting our feeling out in the open. I mean that came later, but this time it wasn't. No, it wasn't that at all.

It was kind of embarrassing, actually. You see, this one time, I was taking a bath in a hot spring. Yeah, I know. And then I felt him drawing near. I can always tell when he is near and this time was no exception. Yeah, I know. I did the practical thing and ran for my clothes. By the time he showed his presence, I was very damp, but decent.

But really now, this was far too early into our not-quite-friendship for deus ex machina lemons. So they did not appear. Granted, things did start to get interesting.

I was cold, wet, embarrassed, and mad at him. He was…exactly as anyone would imagine him—glowering in his all importance and starting haughtily at me. Of course, he seemed to think he was the one wronged, finding his normal conversation partner pissed as hell at him for her current cold, wet state.

So, quite predictably, out relations that night did not go smoothly. There was a great deal of yelling on my part and a great deal of self-important bandying about on his part. Of course he tried to pull rank on me. Of course he did. And he tried to get me to submit. And of course I refused.

We were at an impasse, he and I. He had me pressed up against a tree and was not letting me move anywhere. I had my hands up pressed against his chest ready to puri-zap him if he tried anything. I'm not exactly clear on how what happened next happened, not sure which one of us moved or if the ground beneath us just shoved us together. All I knew was that all of a sudden, he was kissing me fiercely and I was responding in kind.

As expected, this went on for some time. And then he just up and left. No words, no lemons, no nothing. That arrogant annoying arggghhhhhhhhh. I still get pissed about that, no matter how much he's made up for it since.

He actually did make up for it rapidly, in a round about sort of way. I awoke the next morning to by rolling over and feeling something go squish under my sleeping bag. It was a dead squirrel. A squirrel! Not even a rabbit or something useful that I would want to eat, but a squirrel, nicely killed dead and left out just for me.

Needless to say, this caused some confusion. No one really knew why there was an obviously freshly killed dead squirrel laid out next to my bedding like an offering of sorts. No one knew except for Inuyasha, who thought it was the funniest thing ever but refused to tell me what it meant.

I took me a while to figure out why it had been there. The next time I heard from the arrogant one was the following week. I was still pissed about the kiss thing. I was still confused as hell about the killed dead squirrel thing. I was beginning to form a hypothesis that the two were linked, somehow. And so then in waltzed Sesshoumaru-sama like he owned the place. Well technically, he did; we were travelling through the western lands, after all.

But so then in came Sesshoumaru and I did as I usually did when I felt him approaching, I skedaddled off to see what he had to say. Our conversation returned to where it had left off the previous week with him growling at me to submit and me yelling at him for being an insufferable prat.

And then I asked him about the squirrel thing. I had found its timing to be highly suspicious and all signs, or lack thereof, pointed me towards him. I just asked him what it meant. For some reason, he seemed to find my human ignorance insulting. He just gave me one of those looks that made me forget we had ever been on civil terms. We had reached another impasse.

Finally, he spoke, enlightening me. He said that it meant he was claiming me as his, if I would accept his courtship.

Why ever me? What would the almightily Sesshoumaru-sama want with his half-brother's shard-detecting wench? It just didn't line up. Not that I was really objecting, of course, it just didn't make that much sense logically. But as he kissed me into submission, I just let him. I really couldn't complain.

And so Sesshoumaru did in fact want me as his mate. He was actually serious. He wanted me and all of the conflicting facets of who I was for himself. And so this defined the next major shift in our relationship from not-quite-friends to way-more-than-friends.

Sesshoumaru's declaration sent waves through my life. My life in the feudal era changed a lot. First of all, Sesshoumaru, Rin, Jaken, and Ah-Un joined out tachi. Sesshoumaru established his dominance as alpha quickly, with only one out of our original group in objection. My arrogant one continued to court me.

When I returned home, I took Sesshoumaru with me. He just wanted to see modern Japan. He made a scene, as expected, but not quite as badly as I would have predicted. He did not like Buyou, Souta took to calling Inu-no-nii-sama, and Mother seemed to approve of her future (past?) son-in-law, although Grandfather did not seem to share her views about me becoming a demon's mate. And all was sorted out in modern Tokyo.

We retuned to the feudal era and all of a sudden, the final battle with Naraku was upon us. Just like that. And then the next thing I know, the battle was over, Naraku was dead, I had disappeared the shikon no tama, couples were hooking up all over the bloodied battle field, and Sesshoumaru was looking at me like I was a piece of juicy raw meat.

So, yeah, post-battle lemons happened.

And now I am Sesshoumaru's mate. We live in a castle with servants and other youkai running around catering to my mate's every whim while he terrorizes them. I haven't succeeded in mellowing him out that much yet, but I'm sure with time, he'll loosen up. I mean, look at how far he's already come.

How does that even work though? He goes from trying to kill me, to having civilized conversations with me to, claiming me as his. Reflecting back on everything that has happened between us helps me try to puzzle this out. But it still sounds kind of ridiculous, just stating what happened. Bits and pieces of our story just never add up.

And yet it happened; I am with Sesshoumaru. And despite the improbability of everything that has happened between us, things just ended up working for us. And we are living out our own happily ever after.

* * *

I wrote this story as a means of sorting through my own thoughts and images associated with Sess/Kag. I am also in part poking fun handfuls of Sess/Kags that follow essentially the same plot. I realize that the way I have portrayed Kagome is slightly OOC for her canon character, but this is not canon. This is fanon, and she lines up quite nicely with her portrayal there (here?).

This is also my writing style. I enjoy writing a slightly incoherent running commentary of events. Is it enjoyable to read just as a story without analyzing it? Does it work as a commentary on Sess/Kag fics in general? How does thinking of this fic as a commentary on Sess/Kags in general make you think view the ship's general portrayal? I hope everyone has enjoyed this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it and let me know what you think!

Osuwari.


End file.
